Altered Zones

Fuck Buttons' Benjamin John Powers has turned a few heads with his texturally rich, aurally engaging solo project Blanck Mass. Celebrating his recent album on Mogwai's Rock Action label, Powers made an awesome mix for The Quietus that features the likes of Rhys Chatham, Tim Hecker, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Ennio Morricone, and wrote:

"I like the challenge of taking tracks and pieces of music I love that jar with each other and attempting to make them blend and work somehow side-by-side. I wouldn't have said that's what makes a good mix across the board, I’ve just been enjoying that process of late. A good mix should be about sharing what makes you happy, whatever that might be. Is this an extension of Blanck Mass? I think it would be a bit rich to say so, as these tracks aren't mine. I just tried to add a narrative. It is certainly an peak at where my head is at though. Yes, I’ve said I’d rather soundtrack nature documentaries than do Blanck Mass live. Anything Attenborough will do just nicely!"

Stream Blanck Mass' mix for the Quietus

Last year, Fuck Buttons' Benjamin John Power recorded an LP's worth of gently unfolding ambience in his apartment in London under solo moniker Blanck Mass. Inspired by "the beautiful complexity of the natural world" and "cerebral hypoxia"-- or the loss of oxygen to the brain -- his debut full-length offering on Mogwai's Rock Action imprint toes a fine and heartbreaking line between the ecstatic and the elegiac. Album cut "Icke's Struggle" combines some soupy synth wash with a far-off chorus of animal sounds and chirping birds. We might register it as the sound of burgeoning life if these visuals courtesy of Alex Turvey didn't make us think of the opposite process, with the slow disintegration of some tropical folliage under what appears to be a downpour of acid rain, but just might be a metaphor for hypoxia. Can't really get much heavier than that. -- Emilie Friedlander, Altered Zones

Blanck Mass LP drops June 21st in the US via Rock Action